Michael Jackson is in Heaven now, today, tonight.  Naturally, Deastro – who comes from the end of the beats-and-bass spectrum opposite Motown Records – might be expected to say something about all this.  A blanket drapes across the mic-stand like the wing of some truly exotic bird, shepherding Deastro – Randy Chabot on voice and laptop, backed by drummer Jeff Supina, guitarist Mark Smak, and bassist Brian Connelly – through several tempo changes in the first song alone.  Chabot talks about swimming across a lake in Michigan to see the absent Michael’s monkeys before jumping into “Biophelia,” his faraway voice kicking the band into 23rd gear.  Rather than the vocals vanishing into the mesh of the song to become another instrument – cf. Skullflower’s Matthew Bower – it’s a voice to which you’d pay attention even with those gale-force winds of rock blasting past.  “Greens, Grays, and Nordics” (clearly he’s been keeping up with the UFO Humanoid Sighting Reports website), another song off the new Moondagger LP (Ghostly International), showcases one of the most admirable things about Chabot’s style.  Even though occasionally he breaks to kick another riff/loop into action on the machine, his focus and clarity of sincerity isn’t compromised in the slightest.  There’s “Apache Dance,” which comes off as a cross between “Tubular Bells” and a vastly more energetic analogue of U2’s October LP – the stolen briefcase version, that is.  The opus “Daniel Johnston Was Stabbed In The Heart With The Moondagger By The King Of Darkness And His Ghost Is Writing This Song As A Warning To All Of Us” confirms that, vocally, the touchstones are obvious; The Postal Service and Conor Oberst spring most readily to mind.  Yet in rhythm and subject matter, Chabot is his own man – and there is a thread running through the vocal gymnastics of “indie” that translates as fey, overripe and infinitely pitiable.  Not so Deastro.  “The Shaded Forest,” one of tonight’s breakout tunes, boasts a synth line ringing out like frozen bells quickly thawing against the frigid half-life of winters in Michigan.  They end with “Light-Powered,” that frighteningly incandescent, transcendent instrumental that’s the first song on the first Deastro record.  It’s a great big galumphing hug of a song that makes you happy to be alive – birds singing, kids dancing, flowers and puddytats and all that.  These are going to be very big, very auspicious years upcoming for Deastro.  Bank on it.

—David Cotner